Sheer Good Fortune - A Documentary

thank you very much for coming out we are very very pleased to be here today that Virginia Tech will be actually the host to what arguably is the largest gathering of black intellectuals since Margaret Walker had the 200th anniversary of Phyllis Wheatley I've known Tony Morrison for and in 40 years she's been here before for us almost 20 years ago now when I first came Tony's son slave died and as the mother of a son though one doesn't have to be a mother let alone a mother of a son to recognize the sadness I thought that the writing community should wrap our arms around tell me I just thought we should do something and I thought well okay if what you want is to let her know she is loved then the next thing we would need is my hair one of the joys of being my age is that we still have the privilege of being in your company being in Tony's company we're getting ready to celebrate Tony Morrison and we have the grand down of poetry and we're gonna have the Grand Am of fiction all the same stage together and the noon day of poetry arranging it dr. Larson been on say together before well there's a festival the well sure the Heian Y Festival and we hung together two lady friends and sister fans and then when she earned the Nobel I gave a party for her here the United States should have been you know what that's a point yeah people live in direct relation to the heroes and she rose they always and always and one of the reasons that I take my hat and do it Salaam to Nikki Giovanni is she came up with the idea of honoring Toni Morrison it's just right I tend to be partial actually to Virginia Tech because I think that we are a growing institution I'm just a dreamer and I'm just always thinking of how do we bring things together that haven't happened we are here in the arms of Appalachia so we are in an incredible in terms of creativity position but we also are international so we are reaching out but the arts are key and I so appreciate people just saying to people like me will dream do it think it out we have the unique honor of having Toni Morrison it was only the second American woman to have won a Nobel this is about love this is a volunteer effort on the part of everybody that's coming we're here because we're interested and it delights us to be a part of this event so I wanted to open the floor to questions or comments or where is that that's in Suzanne she was the dedication yeah I wrote The Bluest Eye and over a long period of time I started in Washington and I put it down but I found that after I finished the Brewers I I was really sort of miserable nothing particularly miserable was going on but I just thought oh the world looked incoherent it's not a stupid and anyway so then I got this other idea the white feminists were talking about Oh women have to be friends with each other we cannot be competitive and I was thinking wait a minute black women have always been friends and if you didn't have each other you could had nothing you know what that means right so I thought about that and I thought about friendship that would be tested so I wrote it's your good fortune if you miss you know sort of long for things before they leave you and I thank you all for coming it's been fun thank you if I had just tried to do something it would have been insufficient it would have been with love but I wanted the writing community to speak up I wanted the political community I wanted us to come together there ought to be something that lets us come together in love that lets us just lift each other up that has no other agenda we just reached out to about 30 people here to say we would like for you to come we want you to be a part of this I'm a writer and writers do things alone it's our inclination the only thing that I do together is I play Bid Whist well there's only one rule in Bid Whist trust the apartment it's another reason that I enjoy sheer good fortune when you do things like this you end up with partners and we have which I am thrilled about we have a group of youngsters coming from the Bronx and they will be introducing dr. Maya Angelou I'm so excited to be able to show Virginia Tech to a bunch of youngsters from the Bronx they they need to know we're here and they need to know that we have a welcoming campus what we're gonna do let's go offstage and Michael is gonna lead us on Johnny will you help because you're the only two actors I have and I want everybody to relax we have two voices going they're making love some of us of course haven't but those who have you remember and it was fun and you were saying you know oh baby baby you know but she's not saying all baby baby she's saying Porter and that's what the tea porcha is this for me she asked yes he said and as they're cute please welcome to the state some special young men all the way from the Bronx New York everybody you as the first reader in the group will be introduced by a voiceover that will say we begin with former poet laureate and peel it surprised winning poet Rita Dove you will come downstage and we can welcome there if you all want to instead of roses and silk underwear and bottles of perfume the image that we have for the show is this notion that we start with this empty stage and by the end when Toni is out there you're all surrounding her oh yes this this this is for you ha ha good things for the ones that sky both feet flat the game is done they think I lost I think I want both feet flat the game is done I was back there waiting for them to introduce some big muckety-muck I was I didn't know this me and Here I am out here to see you and goodness what a blessing and those children what about that thank you thank you I'm grateful and that night it is for me to be here with my sister friend Tony Morrison this is what this woman has done through ten books loving respecting appreciating the african-american woman and all that she goes through for this and beloved The Bluest Eye whatever it is so I loved the fact that I'm here tonight to be here to respect and show my respect and my delight my love for Tony Morrison I think you might be I read The Bluest Eye at 19 I never read anything that made me feel like that like it as we all know Toni Morrison's writing has that rhythm and so I was done reading it and I still felt the thing inside and this song came out this is called not afraid of the dark oh how we love humans worse from tar-baby hurry hurry she urged him they were waiting waiting who's waiting suddenly he was alarmed the men the men are waiting for you show me the way in the follow no matter how far deep dark or hollow cuz when I'm with you I'm not afraid of the dark somewhere inside you is that free person I'm talking about locate her and let her do some good in the world never mind your daddy's love is not a gift it's a diploma how do you know you've graduated you don't what you do know is that you are human and therefore capable of learning how to love the purpose of evil was to survive it and they determined without ever knowing they've made up their minds to do so to survive floods white people tuberculosis famine and ignorance you are my sister you are my daughter you are my face you are me I have found you again these particular brown girls for mobile at a kid are not like some of their sisters they're not fretful nervous or shrill they do not have lovely black dicks that stretch as though against an invisible power their eyes do not bite these sugar brown mobile girls move through the streets without a stir yet there was this heavy spice sweet smell that made you think of the east and striped tents and the sha sha sha of lake bracelets musicians understood as early as anyone that Truman's bomb changed everything and only scat and bebop could say how do not you love love love love my love love love love love love love instead of chocolate creams in a heart-shaped box instead of a big house and a great big car and a great big car instead of long trips in a clean white boat instead of picnics and fishing fishing and being old together on a porch this is for you girl oh yes this this is for you I think I really think this is yeah I think it is the first time I have been rendered speechless and I you know sit here listening to different voices read words that I wrote many years ago or even recently giving them the meaning even a new meaning and a new sound I cannot tell you how delightful that is to have one's words move like that through another intelligence through another creative spirit through another tongue and to hear it come back to you in different colors you know but still you are a so-called author of it but get no longer belongs to you that's the magic and that's me my favorite human beings from Edwards - Sonja - buyer - no list okay all my lover's all my friends all my writer friends thank you

Channel: Virginia Tech

Views: 42,528

Keywords: virginia tech, sheer good fortune, toni morrison, maya angelou, nikki giovanni, joanne gabbin, american literature, virginia_tech, vt, vpi, hokies, center for the arts

Id: pLATjH9fj7M

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 13 2013